Planter's Diary

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Lifescapes

A lush plantation paradise, perfumed with the subtly intoxicating aroma of coffee and spice, welcomes you to the planter's life. Come February the air is filled with the heavy fragrance of snow white coffee blossoms, heralding the onset of the coffee season. In November, the plants are dotted with ripe red coffee cherries.

Travel through a long-gone era of tales of a land in sprawling plantation homesteads; spiced with a dash of the local lore and sprinkled with the colonial legacy of Coorg; one of the last remaining bastions of an age bygone.

Pepper harvesting commences immediately after coffee harvesting (carried on each year during the month of Feb-Mar), and continues until mid-April. The harvesters use a natural bamboo ladder to pluck pepper. Read more

Coffee blossoms appear during the month of January, when sprinklers are fixed in the estate and water falls like artificial rain in the coffee estate for over 5 hours. The coffee plants begin germinating and the sprinklers are shifted to another plot. The plants take five days to produce the coffee blossom. The coffee plantations then look like jasmine flower gardens. Read more

Rubber plantations existed at Orange County, Coorg since the time the British occupied the country. When the British began researching about soil conditions conducive to growing rubber, they found the plantations of Orange County, Coorg suitable for this purpose. They planted many rubber trees around the Orange County estate. Read more

Each year, the months of Nov, Dec and Jan sees the paddy harvest season come alive in Coorg. All the labourers get together, use a ‘kokkekathi’ (a particular type of knife) and wearing a plantation dress code – a full sleeve shirt, an apron and a gunny sack around themselves, begin harvesting the paddy. Read more

Who does not have a fascination for the Tiger? The handsome ferocious beast known for its courage and cunning always brings a thrill to those who get a rare sight of it in the wild! The sighting of the tiger in Coorg is today very rare. Read more

The star-shaped fruit named the Star Fruit has distinctive ridges running down its sides that give the appearance of a star. The entire fruit is edible and used in cooking. Star Fruit can be made into relishes, preserves, and juice drinks. Read more

‘Rosewood’ refers to a number of richly hued timbers, often brownish, but found in many different hues. All rosewoods are strong and heavy, taking an excellent polish, being suitable for guitars, furniture, luxury flooring, and so on. Read more

Living in a Bungalow surrounded by Coffee Plantations seems surreal. If the Bungalow is an old Planters’ Bungalow from the 1800s, it adds to the charm of the entire estate. The Bungalows come in different sizes – large and still larger – for I haven’t seen a small compact Planter’s Bungalow yet.

The humble jack, which happens to be the largest tree-borne fruit in the world (each jackfruit can weigh up to 50 kilograms) is found a plenty in Coorg. Jackfruit trees provide shade to the cardamom and coffee plantations in Coorg.